LAWLESSNESS IN THE HEADLINES: Forgiving The Guilty While Charging The Innocent

There are many people who reject the assertion that Natural Law I a real thing and that it is the universal law which governs this universe, but both are true. What’s more, both rest of the necessity of a Creator, for, without Him, lawlessness reigns. And when lawlessness reigns, there can be no such things as morality, justice, security, rights or liberty. There is only “might-makes-right,” and this is what the headlines tell us this nation and our society have devolved into: a lawless mob where the powerful make the rules, the guilty are excused and the innocent are held responsible for the actions of others.

A judge on Tuesday decided to give a Texas teenager who killed four in a drunken driving accident a 10 year probation sentence rather than jail time after defense attorneys argued the teen’s parents spoiled him and never taught him right from wrong.

There is so much wrong with this story. First, ignorance of the law is no excuse for violating the law. This is a well-established principle of our legal system. Thus, this young man should have been convicted and sentenced. The fact that he was not then means the judge should be immediately removed from the bench. Finally, the very idea that a “professional” would argue that a competent adult should be held blameless simply because he or she was spoiled as a child should be viewed as a mental defect in the person making that argument. This is a simple issue. We are all born with an innate sense of right and wrong, so we have no excuse for claiming we didn’t know better:

“Questions of natural right are triable by their conformity with the moral sense and reason of man.”

–Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson got this from John Locke, who in turn got it from the book of Romans:

If you can be arrested and charged for not forcing your will onto another person, then you live under a condition of total anarchy. There is no Natural Law that compels a person to prevent another from doing something they know they should not do unless there is absolute certainty the second person will cause harm to another party. In this case, even though the second party was intoxicated, there is no proof that the young lady who was arrested could have known with absolute certainty that her friend would cause physical harm of damage to property. So how can she be charged with a crime? By this reasoning, everyone who had any contact with a drunk who then got behind a wheel is guilty of a crime, as is anyone who has ever known a mentally unstable person who later harms another; or even a person who owns and uses a baseball bat or hammer to kill.

In order to be a law, a law must be applied equally under the same conditions, and this is not what is being reported. In short, this story is about anarchy, not the law. It must also conform to Natural Law, otherwise it is not a law but tyranny in the guise of law. Natural Law does not allow us to force our will on another unless their is certainty of imminent harm. It may be unfortunate, tragic even, but without certainty of imminent harm, holding a person accountable for the actions of another is a violation of Natural law. But more than that, the laws that were used against these three kids are meant to apply to the first person. Reckless endangerment is connected to what you do, not to what you allow others to do. What we have in this story is a clear example of people charging stupid but otherwise innocent people simply to make themselves feel better — and it is wrong.

Both of these stories are becoming the norm, and both are about the compulsion to “punish” someone when things go wrong, but not the person who is actually at fault. As for the person who is actually guilty, our society wants to make excuses for them – not hold them accountable for their actions. And to compound the tragedies in both stories: what the courts are teaching people is that a spoiled child should be spoiled even more – by the government this time — by allowing him to get away with manslaughter, but three kids are charged for not forcing their will onto that of another person.

Sadly, these type of stories are starting to become the norm, and there is nothing about them in the least bit connected to the rule of law, let alone Natural Law.